Discworld 40 - Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett - 16 of 26 Episodes

Raising Steam is the 40th Discworld novel, written by Terry Pratchett. It was also the last one published before his death in 2015. Originally due to be published on October 24th, 2013, it was pushed back to November 7th, 2013 (and March 18, 2014 in the U.S.) It is the finale of the Moist von Lipwig trilogy in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and features the introduction of locomotives to the Discworld a concept mentioned in Death's Domain. The book features an entirely new character in Dick Simnel, the inventor of the train. The book received mixed reviews from Pratchett fans, considered by many to not be one of his best because of the style of its writing in particular. Debate was ongoing about whether the fact that Pratchett's Alzheimer's Disease had progressed to the point where he could no longer type out his novel and had to rely on a dictation system, had altered his style of writing and editing. Others wondered whether the disease had progressed to the point where he simply could not write as effectively as he once did. My (Rob Bennie) feeling is that the word usage, the writing style and the sentence structure reflect that of many early Victorian era novels, the era when the trains were being developed and changing the British world. So perhaps Pratchett deliberately chose to utilize a writing style reminiscent of that era in Roundworld. No one will ever know but at least that is a more positive perspective than simply believing Pratchett couldn't deliver any more.